


Our Little Infinity

by tonystarkssnipples



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Fault in Our Stars - John Green
Genre: Cancer, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Teenage AU, Young Love, teenage cancer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 20:14:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1756043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tonystarkssnipples/pseuds/tonystarkssnipples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Despite the tumor shrinking medical miracle that had bought him a few years, Steve has never been anything but terminal, his final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Tony Stark suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Steve’s story is about to be completely rewritten.”</p><p>An Avengers/The Fault in Our Stars crossover, casting Steve Rogers as Hazel Grace Lancaster and Tony Stark as Augustus Waters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Little Infinity

**Author's Note:**

> THIS STORY IS CURRENTLY ON HIATUS. MY FATHER PASSED AWAY FROM CANCER AND I CANNOT WRITE THIS RIGHT NOW. I WILL FINISH IT EVENTUALLY.
> 
> \--
> 
> The Fault in Our Stars is my favorite book in the entire world and I just reread it for the forth time and was like "I need to do a Stony AU. This instant."
> 
> Some characters I am leaving as the characters in the books. In this chapter, there's Monica. I chose this because I didn't want to villinize any of the MCU woman (and this is strictly MCU characters, because MCU has the largest audience) and I didn't feel like making Rhodey gay (because I'm sick of fics WHERE EVERYONE IS GAY).
> 
> There will be a few others along the way, but since the book doesn't have a lot of characters, it won't be much of a problem.
> 
> I will add tags and characters as the story progresses. I still haven't decided who I've cast as who in some roles, so I can't have them tagged (obv).

Steve was a side effect, a truth he knew and had always known. In fact, everyone was a side effect, but some were more side effect-y than others. Steve was very side effect-y. At least in his own mind.

His mom thought he was depressed. He probably was but he didn’t care. She took him to a doctor who confirmed that he was swimming in a paralyzing and totally clinical depression, to which her response was to send him to some heinous support group where a guy called Nick Fury droned on about how he once had cancer in his balls but now he doesn’t have cancer anymore. He always reminds them that he doesn’t have balls anymore, either, as if that makes him a bigger, stronger man (it kind of does, though, because it must suck to live without balls).

Support Group met in a church basement, but Fury liked to say they were in the heart of Jesus. Literally in the heart of Jesus. Support Group met in the Literal Heart of Jesus. Fury tried to be stoic or whatever, some kind of religious helper, but in reality he was a big, burly black guy, who often said Motherfucker in a church basement filled with kids twelve through eighteen. 

They went around the circle, introduced themselves with their name, age, diagnoses, and how they’re feeling today.

“Steve. Sixteen. Thyroid originally but with an impressive and long-settled satellite colony in my lungs,” then, after a pause and an expectant look from Fury, “And I’m doing okay.”

After everyone went around and introduced themselves, Fury would ask if anyone wanted to share. What followed was a bullshit chorus of support: everyone talking about fighting and battling and winning. Brave words with empty meanings. Well, at least for Steve. Steve would never be fixed. Not all the way.

Somewhere during this time, people would get competitive and try to not only beat their cancer, but beat the other people in this room. Being a Cancer Kid, you didn’t really have much to look forward to (especially if you’ve been terminal since diagnosis like Steve). But say someone has a twenty percent chance of living the next five years. That’s a one in five chance. You look around the room and think all I have to do is outlive four of these, as Fury would eloquently put it, motherfuckers. 

Steve found that there was one redeeming quality of Support Group (other than Fury’s foul mouth), and that was a kid named James “Rhodey” Rhodes who had some fantastically improbable eye cancer. Steve and Rhodey communicated exclusively through sighs. When someone would discuss anticancer diets or snorting ground-up shark fin or whatever, Rhodey’d glance over at Steve and sigh ever to slightly. Steve’d shake his head microscopically and exhale in response. 

* * *

Needless to say, Support Group blew. It got so bad, that after a few weeks it resulted to Steve’s mom dragging his tiny, cancer ridden body out of the house, strapping him into the car, and taking him. As it turns out, the Wednesday he met Tony Stark, he had tried his best to get out of Support Group.

“I’m sick, mom,” Steve whined and punctuated it with a fake cough that he tried to make sound real, which just made his crap lungs hurt more.

“You’re no more sick this afternoon than you were this morning, and you were perfectly fine this morning.”

Steve groaned. “I’m never perfectly fine. Even on my best days I’m a wreck.”

His mom pulled back the covers on his bed and sat him up, to which is response was to try and tear himself away from her. It was a joke; he was too weak. “That is true, but you need to get a life. You’re sixteen. Go out. _Live_.”

“Two problems with that. One: I can never really ‘live’ in my condition, so it’s pathetic and depressing to try. Two: if you want me to be a normal teenager, get me a fake ID so I can go to clubs, drink vodka, and take pot.”

“There are two problems with that,”  his mother imitated. “One: You don’t ‘take’ pot and—”

“See! That’s the kind of thing I would know if I had a fake ID.”

“Get up, you’re going to Support Group.”

Steve flopped back on the bed. It jostled a little, which sent a pain shooting through his chest, but he’d never admit it to his mother. He then got up, got dressed, and went to Support Group. He went to Support Group for the same reason he’d once allowed nurses with a mere eighteen months of graduate education to poison him with exotically named chemicals: to make his mom happy. The only thing worse than biting it from cancer at sixteen was having a kid who bit it from cancer.

* * *

When they got there, Steve pretended to fiddle with his oxygen tank to waste time, in the hopes that maybe his mom had changed her mind and would let him go back home so he could lay on the couch and watch shitty reality shows.

“I love you,” his mom said when he finally accepted his fate of having to go in and started to exit the car.

“Love you, too, mom,” he mumbled as he dragged the cart holding his oxygen tank behind him. It wasn’t that he didn’t love her, because he did—with all his heart—but he was mad at her for subjecting him to this ball-less torture. 

“Make friends!” she shouted after him. He ignored her.

When he got into the church, he walked to the stairs and prepared himself for what was about to happen. He didn’t like taking the elevator because at Support Group, the elevator was a Last Days activity. Even so, walking down the stairs burned like a motherfucker. Fury insisted that swearing was good for the healing process, but Steve was pretty sure he only said that because he couldn’t watch his mouth. Either way, he liked it.

Steve went to the table and tried to snack on store-bought cookies that had expired in 2013. When he turned around, there was a boy staring at him.

Steve had never seen this boy before. He was about Steve’s age, maybe a year older. He was slumped in the chair in a way that said _I’m too cool to care what anyone thinks of me_ but Steve was able to understand that it meant _I have to make everyone think that I think I’m too cool to care what anyone thinks of me even though I care a lot._ That was a lot of _thinks_ and _everyones_ , but by the half smile the kid threw his way, he knew he was right.

It hadn’t been an accident, the boy looking at him. At first, Steve thought he was staring because Steve was a scrawny Cancer Kid, but he realized that everyone in the room was a Cancer Kid. Even the staring boy was a Cancer Kid. He had to be or he wouldn’t be in the Literal Heart of Jesus. Steve suddenly became aggressively aware of all of his little problems that equated the mess he truly was. He had always been tiny but at least his clothes had fit. Now they sagged in awkward places. He hadn’t bothered to comb his hair (hoping his mother would deem him too slobbish to make him get out of the car).

Steve decided that he couldn’t just stand there and stare at the Staring Boy. He sat next to Rhodey, two seats away from the boy. He turned under the pretense of saying hi to Rhodey, but he really just wanted to look and see if Staring Boy was still staring.

He was.

Steve looked away and turned to stare at the floor. There were no two ways around it: this boy was hot. If he hadn’t been, the staring thing would have been awkward. It was still awkward, but in a different way.

Steve pulled out his phone and pretended to text to pass the time. It would have been nice if Steve had someone to text, but the only friend he really had was his mom, and he couldn’t text her now. She was supposed to believe he was Branching Out.

He had been late to the Candy Crush party, but at least he didn’t constantly have people asking him what level he was on. At least, that’s what he figured would have happened had he been around people. Since he hadn’t, he hadn’t found out about the game until much later. So, here he was, playing a game that had lost it’s cool a year ago, and waiting for Fury to talk about his balls/lack there of.

Everyone did their thing. “Steve. Sixteen. Thyroid originally but with an impressive and long-settled satellite colony in my lungs. And I’m doing okay.” All the while, Steve stared back. He couldn’t let this new boy win. After an eternity of mutual staring, the boy blinked and turned away. It was only for a moment, but when he went back, Steve cocked an eyebrow so as to say “I win”.

“James, you have something to share with the group? I hear you’re going through a pressing time.”

“Sure, whatever. I’m Rhodey. Seventeen. In a couple of weeks I’ll be getting this other eye cut out, after which I’ll be blind. Not to complain or anything, because I know a lot of us have it worse.” Steve could have sworn that Rhodey looked at him, but didn’t mention it. “But yeah, being blind does sort of suck. My girlfriend helps, though. And friends like Tony.”

So Staring Boy did have a name after all. Tony. Steve rolled it around in his mind for a bit. Tony looked like a Tony. He always thought that was weird, when people said stuff like that. “You look like a Steve.” What’s a Steve supposed to look like? Does not look like a Colin? Or a Jake? If he told them his name was Jake, would they say “You look like a Jake”? But in that moment, he understood. Tony looked like a Tony. He belonged to that name and that name belonged to him.

A little kid named Harley shared next. He was twelve. He had leukemia. He’d always had leukemia. He said he fine. He’d taken the elevator.

Jasper Sitwell, who Steve liked to call Shitwell because he was an asshole, went next. He had been in remission for a long time, from cancer on his appendix, which was a pretty easy fix since you didn’t need that. You needed your lungs. Every meeting Shitwell said he felt _strong_ , which was kind of a punch in the face to ninety pound Steve with oxygen-drizzling nubs tickling his nostrils. 

Finally it was the boy’s turn. _Tony’s_ turn. He smiled his half smile. “My name is Tony Stark,” he started. His voice was deep and had a rasp to it and Steve was pretty sure it was the best voice ever. “I’m seventeen. Had a little touch of  of osteosarcoma a year and a half ago, but I am here today at Rhodey’s request. Can’t say no to your soon-to-be-blind best friend.”

“How are you feeling?” Fury prompted.

“Oh, I’m grand.” The way he said it was cocky, but Steve didn’t feel like he was bragging. There was a difference between _grand_ and _strong_ and he was not bias on the grounds that he found Tony attractive. Not at all. “I’m on a roller coaster that only goes up, my friend.”

Then it went on again. Fighting, battling, winning, losing. Friends don’t get it. People cried. Monotone group mumbling “We’re here for you” when Fury decided someone needed it. Neither Tony nor Steve spoke again until Fury said, “Tony, how about you share some of your fears with the class.”

Tony shrugged one shoulder. He had gone back to staring at Steve. “Oblivion.” When it seemed that no one got it, Tony went on. “I fear oblivion like the proverbial blind man who’s afraid of the dark.”

“Too soon,” Rhodey said through a smile.

“Was that insensitive?” Tony asked. “I’m socially retarded when it comes to feelings.”

“Don’t be a little bitch, Tony,” Fury ordered. Harley flinched. Swearing obviously wasn’t a think in his house. “Now, let’s return to you and your struggles. You said you feared oblivion.”

“I did.”

Fury didn’t know what to say to that. He was there to tell us that he was here for us or whatever, not deal with some cocky jerk fearing the state of being forgotten or unknown. “Would anyone like to speak to that?”

Steve wasn’t the hand-raising type. He hadn’t been to school in three years, he didn’t have friends outside of his mom, and his close second was an author of a book who did not know Steve existed. Regardless, he raised his hand.

“Steve!” It was evident that Fury was glad someone else was going to chime in, and that that someone was Steve. Steve had been there for awhile and never opened up. Fury probably thought he’d had some sort of breakthrough.

Steve looked over to Tony and Tony looked back. Tony had spoken to the group at large, Steve bore his eyes into Tony and spoke only to him. “There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that or species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this”—Steve whirled his finger in a circle, indicated the room—“will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our son, we will not survive forever. There was a time before organisms experienced consciousness and there will be a time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that’s what everyone else does.” Steve wished he could do a mic drop and then walk from the room with “swag”. The problem was he didn’t have a microphone and if he were to exit in this silence, it would contain the squeaking of the wheels on his cart, which wasn’t “swag”.

The room was silent and everyone stared at Steve. He continued to stare at Tony.

“Goddamn,” Steve heard him say. “Aren’t you something else.”

The room remained silent for a long time after Tony had spoken, but soon enough Fury got the ball rolling again. Not his balls though. Steve laughed at the joke he made in his head. Steve and Tony continued their staring contest.

After Fury read off a list of kids who had once attended Support Group who were no longer With Us, Steve went to the food table for something to do. He didn’t like going right out after Support Group. He wanted his mom to think he was participating. 

He wished he had made a run for it because Tony half limped over to him. “What’s your name?”

“Steve.”

“No, your full name.”

“Um, Steven Grant Rogers?”

Tony opened his mouth to say something more when Rhodey walked up. “Hold on,” Tony said, holding up his finger to Steve, as if Steve had nothing better to do than to wait for the return of Tony’s attention. Steve really didn’t have anything better to do, which pissed him off more than it should. His routine nothingness had seised to annoy him some time ago. “That was actually worse than you made it out to be,” he said to Rhodey.

“I told you it sucked.”

“Yet you still bother with it. Why?”

Rhodey shrugged. “It helps.”

Tony leaned in so he thought Steve couldn’t hear. Or maybe he wanted Steve to think he thought Steve couldn’t hear. Steve was still trying to figure out the inner workings of Tony Stark’s brain. “He’s a regular?” Steve couldn’t hear Rhodey’s response, but Tony clasped him on the shoulder. “I’ll say.”

“I should go,” Rhodey said. “Monica’s waiting for me. I gotta look at her a lot while I can.”

Rhodey took his leave. Steve realized that was his opportunity to make a run for it, but figured that Tony could easily catch up to him, regardless of his limp. Steve had figured the limp was due to a prosthetic. He’d heard that osteosarcoma sometimes took a limb in exchange for a longer life.

“Why were you staring at me?” Steve asked once Rhodey was officially out of sight (no pun intended).

“Because you’re beautiful.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “Guys aren’t supposed to be beautiful.”

“I could call you a handsome, strapping young lad, but the truth of the matter is, you’re beautiful. You’re like a 2004 Chris Evans. Like _Perfect Score_ Chris Evans.”

“Never seen it.”

“Really?”

Steve shrugged. He didn’t really care that much about 2004 Chris Evans and his perfect score. “Well, I’m gonna leave now,” Steve announced. The conversation seemed over. He started his trek up the stairs, his cart thumping behind him. He cringed, knowing that Tony was watching him.

“You should see it,” Tony said once they got out. Steve startled; he hadn’t known Tony had followed him up. “ _The Perfect Score._ ”

Steve shrugged. “Okay. I’ll look it up.”

“No. With me. At my house. Now.”

Steve wasn’t sure if Tony was kidding or not. “I hardly know you, Tony Stark. How do I know you’re not an ax murderer?”

He nodded. “True enough, Steven Grant.”

Steve noticed that his mom wasn’t there yet, which was odd because she was always waiting for him. As much as it annoyed him, Steve was currently desperate for that out. In an attempt to look everywhere but at Tony, his eyes landed on Rhodey, pushed up against the wall by some girl with long brown hair that flowed almost all the way down her back. Monica, Steve assumed.

“Forever,” Rhodey mumbled into her mouth.

“Forever,” she mumbled back.

Without thinking, Steve turned to Tony for answers. “Big believers in PDA,” Tony explained.

“What’s with the forever.”

Tony shrugged. “It’s kind of their thing.”

Steve, against his better judgment, turned back and looked at Monica sand Rhodey. When he had finally seen enough, he turned back to Tony, who had popped a cigarette in his mouth.

“Are you serious? You just ruined this whole thing.”

“Which whole thing?” he asked, his mouth moving around the cigarette. Steve kept waiting for him to produce a lighter and reach up to light the stink stick. Maybe Tony had enough decency not to smoke next to the kid with the oxygen tank.

“You were pretty close to perfect, but even though you had cancer you gave money to a company in exchange for the chance to acquire yet more cancer. Let me assure you that not being able to breathe? Sucks. It’s very disappointing. _Totally._ ”

“You know they only hurt you if you light them.”

Steve’s mom pulled up and Steve almost took the out, but instead he took the bait, “What?”

“I’ve never lit one.”

“What?” Steve repeated.

“It’s a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth,” Tony bit down on it. “But you don’t give it the power to do it’s killing.”

Steve was taken aback. From what he was gathering, Tony was a pretentious douche bag. What he was also gathering was that he was witty and smart and funny. In a split second decision, Steve gestured for his mom to roll down the window.

“What is it sweetie?” she asked.

“I’ve been invited to a movie with Tony Stark and I’m going.”

When Steve turned back to Tony, there was a big goofy smile lighting up his face. Steve decided it was lightyears better than the half smirk Tony seemed so fond of.

**Author's Note:**

> There were some parts where I realized I was switching over to narrate from first person because, when I was referencing the book, it's in first person. I think I fixed most of them, but if not, please leave me a message and I will gladly fix it.
> 
> Also, leave messages because they're awesome for me to read.


End file.
